Saw this interesting little bit of history this morning and figure I would take a photo. This has less to do with warfare itself than with the aftermath of war. This is a plaque dedicated to the role that Bayreuth, Germany played in the resettlement of ethnic Germans in the wake of the mass expulsion of these people from their homes in Eastern Europe after Germany’s defeat in WWII. Their is a good piece with a brief history of post war ethnic movements in Europe by the BBC Here: ArticleNo More War or Expulsions
from February to October 1946 the Bayreuth Main Train Station hosted 33 Cargo trains containing 39,281 expellees from the Sudetenland.
The city and county are thankful for the reception
Sudeten German Organisation July 2010
This is something that isn’t discussed or even known about. When researching my book “Military or civilians? The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War”, I came across instances of German servicewomen who had been stationed in the Eastern territories and were left behind by the military authorities in the chaos of evacuation. Feeling abandoned, they fled with the civilians, many of whom were ethnic Germans. The servicewomen removed their military insignia to blend in and escape being targeted by Russian troops.
I see little memorials and plaques like this all over. The expulsion of ethnic Germans from the East is little know outside academia and is even fairly obscure for Germans outside of a few poplar films made in the past few years. Where I live is not far from the Czech border so I see and here more about the expulsions than most people. The street I live in was built post-war and was named Sudetenlandstrasse because it was primarily Sudeten Deutsch that built the houses. A few of the original expellees still live here but they are now few and far between.